


Prompt 193

by Alex_Chesterfield



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood, Character Death, Death, Fantasy, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 15:59:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12257568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex_Chesterfield/pseuds/Alex_Chesterfield
Summary: “Be careful, hero. I wasn’t always the villain. The world turned their back on me. One day they will do the same to you.”





	Prompt 193

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Prompt 193](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/327138) by Prompt Dealer. 



> As this is my first time using AO3, along with the fact that this work was inspired by another's idea, please inform me politely if I am doing something incorrectly and I will rectify it immediately. Thank you for your view/bookmark/kudo!

“Be careful, hero. I wasn’t always the villain. The world turned their back on me. One day they will do the same to you.”

The hero, clad in silver silk and sword black as night, stood tall, but not proud. His chin was held high, more to give off the aura of battles already won than to feign strength he no longer had. The mask he bore, a worn and cracked gift from a people he had long ago left behind, shimmered with faint magic. Streaks of red and blue had long ago faded, the eyes nothing but dark voids.

The villain, laid out on the broken throne before the hero, clutched a hand to his gaping side, black ooze seeping from the wound and dribbling down the golden steps. Sharp teeth spat red, hissing and seething at the seemingly indifferent man above.

“You think you’re  _so damn special_ now, don’t you? You came all this way, fought the equivalent of a thousand armies all on your lonesome, spat in the face of Death when I fed it to you on a golden platter, scoured the world over a dozen times, all to destroy  _me_. And you’re so  _close_ to your goal, now. You’ve stolen my power,  _destroyed_ my empire… and for what? Fame? Praise?  _Money?”_

The villain choked, coughed on breath he didn’t have, and the hero said nothing. The hero stood by.

“You think any of that will last? You think people will pass down stories of you, remember you by name? No.  _No_ , no no no,  **no** **.** You want to know what will  _really_ happen? What will  _really_ happen, is they’ll elevate you to the status of  _protector_. Keeper of the peace. And when the slightest, ittiest-bittiest little problem arises, they will run to you. They’ll  _beg_ for you. And hey– so long as you can keep them happy… they’ll  _tolerate_ you.”

The villain smiled through blood-stained teeth, their hollow, sunken cheeks near voids now in the dim light of the palace center.

“But the moment you  _fuck up?_  The moment you can’t solve their problem, because you’re too old, because your power long ago left you? The  _moment_ someone gets hurt under your watch? They will cast you aside like the broken  _toy_ that you are. They will  _scream_ about how you failed them, how you couldn’t do the  _one simple task_ they  _gifted_ you with, with utterly  _no_ regard for all that you had done for them in all the years you had lived among them. And what will you do then? Will you shrivel up and die, like they want? Or… will you do as I had done?”

The hero knelt down, head cocked to one side. Silent. Watching. Waiting. The villain leaned up, as much as his broken and battered body would allow him. He wheezed on a breath, knowing that the ones he had left were slowly counting down.

“Will you  _beg_ for their forgiveness? Will you embark on a journey to find the power you had lost,  _yearning_ to be their hero yet again? To once again gain their undying faith? The youth that had left you? Will you find an answer, deep in the wells of Time, only to realize that you’ve already been replaced? Like everything you did for them was worth  _nothing?!”_

He was yelling now, the broken, shattered voice echoing about the vast hall, strewn and littered with bodies and debris from their epic clash moments ago.

“Your morals, your high standards, to do right by these people that would so willingly throw you away… you’ll lose them, eventually. I know this. I have  _lived_ this. It is so much  _easier_ and more fulfilling to take from those who wronged you than to give. If they cannot be satisfied that you are only human… then you will show them that you are a  _god_  that they should have bowed to, long ago.” He smiled something wicked, licking chapped lips. “And when you have no one left… you will gain  _everything_. And the cycle will begin anew, and one day, you will lay where I lay now, and you will give this same speech to the hero who will strike  _you_ down.”

Still the hero remained silent. Still, he said nothing. Now, the villain’s smiling ceased, and his venom and bite returned.

“ _Still_ you think yourself so high and mighty?  _Still_ you refuse to give me even a single spoken word!? Your fall will be so much harder than mine,  _boy_. And wherever the gods will take me in the afterlife, I will look down upon you and  _howl_ with laughter at the sight of your bloodied, bruised corpse!”

The last word rattled around the great, barren halls, like a serpent waiting to strike, and falling still in wait. The hero gazed all around them at the echo, before his gaze once again settled on the villain before him.

“… you already have.”

The hero spoke. His voice was hoarse, shattered. Despondent. The villain’s breath caught in his throat at the sound.

Leather-clad hands snaked up, throwing off the silver hood of his cloak, and streaks of brown and grey and white tumbled down from a sagging bun. Then, the straps of the mask were loosened, and the enchanted wood clattered to the floor. When the hero finally made eye contact with the villain, for the first time,  _he knew those scars_.

The villain’s eyes flashed with the recollection of a small elven child, the left corner of his lip split down the length of his chin, and the scar continued up, over his nose, over his forehead and into his hairline. The boy had wept, hunched over the body of his mother, scorched and bleeding, as the villain had sneered down and continued his rampage through the people who had outcast him.

And  _this_ was the elven boy now? A man, with hollow grey eyes, with the slightest limp to his right leg, with the power of a demigod? His confusion and disbelief must have shown in his expression for the elven man continued to speak.

“You have already laughed and spat on my corpse. My mother’s blood runs through my veins, and so, the desecration of her body was the desecration of my own. Fantastic demons leave no survivors. You are no such thing.”

The villain shook off the shock of the revelation, snickering softly. “No. You are correct; I was a fool to leave any alive. I wanted a message sent and spread, but that was my downfall, in the end.”

He choked again on his own blood. The elven man, the hero, shook his head.

“I held you in such high respect, Elthor. You were a great man. I aspired to be like you, even after you had left. And then you returned… and I forged my own path to destroy you, rather than to idolize you.”

“Hmph. So that’s what this all was, then. Revenge. The lowliest of causes for a self-proclaimed hero. Without my existence to drive you, your fall will be harder  _and_ quicker than mine.”

The hero’s expression adapted into great pain. Great sorrow.

“Elthor… you do not understand. You say that they shall turn their backs on me, but the truth of it is… they already have.”

Elthor raised his head, eyes narrowed, refusing to understand.

“You do not wonder why I have traveled alone. You do not wonder why my equipment is so threadbare, why my sword is that of darkness rather than light. Why it has taken me my entire  _life_ to hunt you down.”

The hero sat down.

“When I was twenty four, I slayed a Dragon the size of a mountain, and the people begged me to stay. I was unhappy. It did not take long for my first blunder– to allow a child to fall to her death. I  _did_ try to save her, but I was not quick enough. I was chased away by most of the town, for being a failure. When I was twenty nine, I sailed across the sea, and was sucked into a whirlpool, to a dimension of a great sea beast. This, too, I slaughtered, and when I returned to the world of men, there was great rejoicing in the nearby city. I served them for many years, but when a great army came through and destroyed them all, I and the remaining survivors were taken prisoner. I was shunned by the enemy and those I had considered friends alike. Even when I escaped, and returned to free all who had been made slaves, I was still not re-welcomed. Then, when I was thirty eight,  _that_ was when my battle against you finally began. I freed villages from your grasp, but when I asked for supplies, or for allies to aid me in my search, all I was ever gifted was a bit of food, or repairs to my weapons. Never gold. Never companionship. The world has  _never_ been merciful to me, Elthor.”

“And yet, you continued to aid them, all this time!?” the villain cried out, tears of frustration and hurt streaming down his cheeks. “Why?! You– you had nothing to gain! For every child you saved from the same fate you have endured, you’ve gained nothing in return!? Why would you suffer through such pain!?”

The hero cast his gaze up, to the great stained glass window high above them. Depicted in it, was the First Battle: the God of Darkness and Nothing, against the Goddess of Light, and Everything. He narrowed his eyes, and glared back down at Elthor.

“Maybe I just really hate you, and I was willing to do what it took to get to you. Even if it meant deep, intense suffering,  _years_ of teaching myself magic and archery and swordsmanship with little to no outside help. Or, maybe, there’s just some off chance that  _maybe_  your worth isn’t defined by the influence of the people, but rather… by the way you view yourself, and the events that forged you into the monster you are now. Maybe, Elthor… it’s that life needs to be worth living for  _yourself_ , not for the sake of people around you. At the end of it all… helping people in the quest to find yourself is just a side bonus.”

The hero stood, and drew his sword, angling it just above the villain’s heart.

“Maybe, Elthor… maybe it’s all about turning your back on the world before it can do the same to you. It’s all about the punchline, and being the first to it. Don’t worry; I learned from  _your_ mistakes. I’ll be sure not to repeat them.”

He thrust down the great black sword, and with one last, pitiful shout of realization, the villain fell still and cold, dissatisfied. The great sword of darkness took in the man’s soul, and the world seemed to fall still.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: <http://chesterfield-ramblings.tumblr.com/>
> 
> Twitter: <https://twitter.com/AlexChester_X_>
> 
> Instagram: <https://www.instagram.com/alexchester_x_>


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